The Great Valley Fireman’s Regatta always happens in the first weekend in May. The reason for this is so that hopefully the water level is up as well as having some decent weather. Sometimes though, that doesn’t always happen. This also avoids conflicts with Mother’s Day. In the case where May 1st would fall on a Sunday, the Regatta would be held on Sat, April 30th.
Most people get there Friday afternoon or evening before, and setup camp. There are races in the morning and then the fun stuff. Usually you go down the river in a canoe, but kayaks or ‘Anything that floats’ are acceptable. There are five beer stops that you can stop at and take a break. Whenever you’re done, you can pull your canoe out and they’ll shuttle you and your canoe back to the campgrounds.
To sum up the event you row a canoe/kayak/anything that floats down a river while getting drunk, than you eat and proceed to drink even more.
Any one ever been to this??? This will be my first year at the regatta. I attached a pic of last year’s finish line.
i went last year for the first time, it was awesome. Our canoe sunk 5 minutes in. I’m quite the noob, I brought my cell phone and my dad’s expensive canoe and scratched the shit out if it.:mamoru: My phone amazingly dried out. If I had it to do over, I would get a tough inflatable intertube and tie a floating cooler to it. Then lay back and get drunk and watch everyone sink canoes. You’re getting wet anyway.
the only floating vessel I have access to is a $5K kevlar/carbon racing canoe… my father would kill me if he heard that I took it to something like this!
But it looks cool!
Edit: at first i thought that you meant this kind of regatta and I got excited. I miss these days:
I saw some guys last year with a well-built wooden raft, and they even had a friggin grill on the thing! They just floated by as if they weren’t even in a river at all, cooking food and drinking.
I don’t really know of any real rules. Just remember it’s shallow in spots and you will scrape bottom, and possibly get swept into overhanging tree branches on the turns.
